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The Fall
Under Construction The Fall (69 AH) refers to the most powerful and most devastating event in the history of Tethys. During the night, a blaze of fire shot across the sky and hit the surface in Blackridge leaving nearby villages scrambling to get away from the strange floods that followed. The floods were strange for a very simple reason. At the time the object fell, there was no rain in the nearby mountains - it was impossible for flash flooding to have occurred. Due to the location it landed, it is also impossible that the flooding somehow miraculously came from a river or a lake or even the Eos ocean - they were not nearby. This is what was so remarkable about the tales people were beginning to tell around Adamas following this event. Birth of Conflict Ampelios, Mountain Spirit Word spread quickly about the strange floods that occurred in the dead of night in Blackridge. Everyone wanted to know why they were happening and what had caused them. The answer lay with a small goblin who had stumbled upon the site of impact some time after it had fallen. Her name was Hagne and she was making her way to the city of Panthalassa (elven city in Blackridge, formerly the capital of Zair) with the loot she intended to sell. Here she was stopped due to suspicion: the object was glowing brightly like no one had ever seen before up until this time. In light of recent stories about the strange floods, the guards put the two together and arrested Hagne and seized the object. Ampelios was a powerful general in charge of the forces centered in northern Blackridge. The artifact seized by Hagne was taken to him, and he examined it in all its perfection and magnificence. Here he made a radical decision. Having heard the tales circulating through those parts as well as Adamas and given the sheer radiance of the object before him, he knew ''there was a great deal locked within it that he did not understand. By law he would have been forced to give an object of such significance up to the imperial court, namely Emperor Judocus. So he didn't. Instead, he seceded from the empire. Promising payment to his soldiers as well as the promise of loot as part of the spoils of war, he was able to convince them to support his actions - that and any isolated soul who did not was executed. What followed was a bloody struggle between Ampelios and the generals of Judocus who fell before him, one by one. Ampelios was a master of siege and positioning and his charismatic nature and half-empty but convincing promises won over many of the citizens he came in contact with, allowing him to bolster his army as he went. The only downside, obviously, is that it was a core of professional and a outer section of recent recruits versus the professional army of Judocus. Regardless, Ampelios put up a legendary fight and made it close to the gates of Aer (capital of Tidalis before its fall). In the end his venture cost Judocus a huge amount of forces, partially due to his own carelessness and partially due to the cunning of Ampelios. In the end Ampelios was defeated and Tidalis left vulnerable. The nature of Ampelios' final torture and death is an astounding tale. He is known today as the elusive Mountain Spirit who has roamed Blackridge for nearly a thousand years. Ten Years War What followed is a strange mixture of interests that made for a short four-sided war that ended up being a mostly three-sided war fought amongst the Eluvani elves, orcs and goblins (who temporarily united under the chieftain Thum'Tuk, a rare event indeed). This war is part of a larger war known as the Five Centuries War, a war that spanned the lives of many and included a huge amount of back-and-forth campaigns. At times one empire ruled most of the world only to have treachery, poor timing or just pure bad luck to allow the artifact to fall into different hands, spurring on other campaigns. Judocus fled east by ship when the Eluvani invaded Tidalis having kept close watch on their degrading situation and deciding it was the time to strike (especially since they had heard a lot of talk that the humans possessed the artifact, which they did). Judocus may have defeated Ampelios, but his luck was about to run out. His ship was stranded not too far east of the capital, along the oceanic borderlands of the goblins. Needless to say they looted his ship, mercilessly and brutally maimed and killed him and took the artifact. The elves would be shocked to find this all out after they successfully captured Aer, though they did not know Judocus had been captured, killed and the object lost to the gobliins. Of course, no one ''knew ''how to use the artifact at the time - thankfully for the elves and orcs alike, for a time at least. Therefore the goblins would gain no striking advantage in the horribly violent battles to come. For part of the war it was largely the orcs versus the goblins, with the goblins ''eventually ''winning over due to their superior siege machines and siege warfare in general. Many tens of thousands perished in these battles. When the orcs finally discovered the tomb of Thum'Tuk outside of Panthalassa by change (for he had gone the route of traditional goblin sacrifice when a leader knows the end is near), they were amazed to find the artifact hidden within it, buried with its last owner. This sparked a civil war amongst the orc warlords within Blackridge, leaving them open to the elven armies who struck as soon as they realized what was going on. The Ten Years War ended with many dead but overall left the Eluvani victorious - they now possessed the artifact and ruled over most of the former lands held by Tidalis. Legacy The artifact that fell on that day in 69 AH forever changed the world of Tethys and ultimately lead to the birth of magic, the rapid emergence of new races following the Great Extinction, as well as the creation of a horrible corrupted version of the original. After the first of the many mysteries was unlocked, it lead to an unprecedented series of wars often referred to as the Five Centuries War. While much was lost during such a war, including many records of ancient history as well as the destruction of many lands and races, it was also the time during which Emperor Marius established the Order of the Mystics who unraveled much of the mystery that lie within it. Once the Order of the Mystics was able to begin to more fully unravel the mysteries locked within, it was soon found that it truly was the representation of the 4 base elemental forces: earth, air, fire water and that the 5th symbol represented creation - which ultimately lead to the artifact formally being called the Aspect of Creation. Within the pyramid rests the perfect harmony of these forces which, together, form the basis of all creation. Sources (1) ''http://reachingutopia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/meteor.jpg